Volvospeed Widebody S60R

What inspires a carbon fiber four door sports car? That is the question I am asked more than any other. What started out as a simple enough task to buy a current generation Volvo and use it as a platform to review products as Volvospeed has done in the past, quickly evolved into a monumental task. A chance encounter while searching for parts on the Internet forever changed the direction of this humble family touring car. The goal was simple and race inspired. If a four door Volvo could race with Vipers and Corvettes in the American GT circuit, why could the same car not do it on the street. Could a Volvo out perform more traditional sports cars and maintain its level of refinement? This is Volvospeed's vision of how the limited "R" edition should have been engineered from the factory.

With the bar set high Volvospeed turned to AtSpeed Motorsport for guidance. At Speed Motorsports raced the S60 in World Challenge GT between 2004 and 2006. Both Bob Miller, the owner, and John Nelson, in charge of product development, have gone above and beyond in helping the project along. Without them I have no doubt this project would not have been possible. Their guidance produced the formula to meet our performance goals. They were also able to handle a large part of the engineering for the car. They set us up with the same wide body kit they use on the GT car. The body, made entirely out of graphite, was designed to both widen the stance of the car as well as provide high speed stability.

For such a relatively large car to be agile the suspension was designed from the ground up. It is literally the same one used on the race track. Brakes were also lifted from the GT car to serve road duty.